The Roman Questions (32-33)

Why is it that in the month of May at the time of the full moon they throw into the river from the Pons Sublicius figures of men, calling the images thrown Argives?[*]

Is it because in ancient days the barbarians who

lived in these parts used to destroy thus the Greeks whom they captured? But Hercules, who was much admired by them, put an end to their murder of strangers and taught them to throw figures into the river, in imitation of their superstitious custom. The men of old used to call all Greeks alike Argives: unless it be, indeed, since the Arcadians regarded the Argives also as their enemies because of their immediate proximity, that, when Evander and his men[*] fled from Greece and settled here, they continued to preserve their ancient feud and enmity.

Why in ancient days did they never dine out without their sons, even when these were still but children?

Did Lycurgus introduce this custom also, and bring boys to the common meals that they might become accustomed to conduct themselves toward their pleasures, not in a brutish or disorderly way, but with discretion, since they had their elders as supervisors and spectators, as it were? No less important is the fact that the fathers themselves would also be more decorous and prudent in the presence of their sons: for where the old are shameless, as Plato[*] remarks, there the young also must needs be lost to all sense of shame.